WASHINGTON — Preparing their jet for take-off from Louisville a little more than an hour before they would be killed in a crash in August, a UPS pilot and co-pilot complained of fatigue and said rest rules for pilots of commercial passenger flights should apply to them as well.

"This is where, ah, the passenger side, you know, the new rules — they're gonna make out," Capt. Cerea Beal told First Officer Shanda Carney Fanning, according to a transcript of the cockpit conversation released Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board.

"Yeah, we need that too," Beal said. "It should be one level of safety for everybody."

"It makes no sense at all," Fanning replied, later saying that during a rest period earlier in the night, she woke up and "I'm thinkin' 'I'm so tired.' "

The transcript was released as NTSB officials held a public hearing Thursday to examine the cause of the early morning crash that killed Beal and Fanning in Birmingham, Ala., on Aug. 14.

“Under FAA guidelines and UPS policy proper crew rest is a shared responsibility. Both the pilot and the company have obligations to ensure safety of flight.”

Mike Mangeot, spokesman UPS

Besides crew fatigue, the hearing focused on procedures for landing on runways without precision guidance systems, training for such landings, pilot coordination and decision-making, and UPS dispatch policies.

"I want to assure families of the crew that the NTSB will pursue every lead to what caused or contributed to this accident," board chairwoman Deborah Hersman said at the opening of the hearing.

But she also cautioned the various parties to the investigation not to jump to conclusions.

The safety board has long expressed concern about operator fatigue, saying the problem shows up repeatedly in accidents across all modes of transportation — planes, trains, cars, trucks and ships. Fatigue can erode judgment, slow response times and lead to errors much like alcohol can.

Two years ago, the Federal Aviation Administration issued new rules aimed at ensuring airline pilots have sufficient rest. FAA officials had proposed including cargo airlines in draft regulations, but exempted them when final regulations were released, citing cost. Cargo carriers, which do much of their flying at night, strongly opposed the regulations. FAA officials estimated the regulations would cost $550 million over 12 years if applied to cargo airlines; the Independent Pilots Association, which represents UPS pilots, estimated the cost at $320 million.

He said Beal had been off for eight days before starting his last trip and Fanning had flown only two of the previous 10 days.

He added that "under FAA guidelines and UPS policy proper crew rest is a shared responsibility. Both the pilot and the company have obligations to ensure safety of flight."

Atlanta-based UPS is the world's largest package-delivery service.

The UPS Airbus A300-600 crashed while on approach to an alternate runway at Birmingham-Shuttlesworth International Airport. The aircraft clipped trees and hit a hill less than a mile from the end of the 7,000-foot runway, which did not have advanced guidance systems.

The airport's main 12,000-foot runway, which was equipped with more advanced landing guidance instruments, was closed for maintenance on its lights but re-opened shortly after the accident.

Beal, 58, of Matthews, N.C., and Fanning, 37, of Lynchburg, Tenn., died of blunt-force injuries sustained in the crash, according to the Jefferson County coroner's office in Birmingham.

The work shift of the UPS pilots killed in the crash began about 9 p.m. the previous day in Rockford, Ill., and took them to Peoria, Ill., and then to Louisville. They were finishing their third and last scheduled leg when the plane slammed into the hillside just before 5 a.m.

Night shift workers frequently suffer fatigue, especially between the hours of 2 a.m. and 6 a.m. when the human body's circadian rhythms — physical and behavioral changes that respond to light and darkness — are telling the brain to sleep, according to sleep experts.

Studies show that 30% to 50% of night-shift workers report falling asleep at least once a week while on the job, said Dr. Charles Czeisler, chief of sleep medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

According to the NTSB, the aircraft was traveling at approximately 140 knots, or about 160 mph, at the time of the crash.

NTSB member Robert Sumwalt said during the preliminary investigation into the accident that the plane's engines were operating normally, cockpit instruments appeared to be working properly and the autopilot function was engaged, which is common when pilots are preparing for a landing.

The transcript of the cockpit voice recorder indicates there was an alarm second before impact telling the pilots that the plane was descending too fast. Three seconds after that, Beal announces: "I got the runway out there twelve o'clock."

Five seconds later, the recorder picked up sounds of rustling, similar to sounds of impact.